Protection of data traffic is an increasingly important technical requirement. For example, it is important to businesses that their network connections do not fail as more and more commerce is conducted using electronic communication systems. Currently, automatic protection systems for network connections utilize data traffic channels each with their own queues. These queues can be large and are not synchronized between the protected traffic channel and the protecting traffic channel. Thus, if the protected traffic channel fails and the protecting traffic channel takes over, there can be either a loss or repeat of traffic transmitted or received over the channel. These losses or repeats of traffic are not handled well by the network and often fall outside the specifications of the network as a whole. It would be helpful if automatic protection systems could be engineered to provide better protection of traffic within the capabilities and specifications of the network.